The present invention relates to crane games found in arcades and other places of commerce, and more particularly to a component of a crane game that employs a vacuum mechanism to withdraw prizes wherein the component is a capsule that is particularly suited for vacuum cranes. Capsules are also used in vending machines, merchandise machines or games that use capsules.
Crane games are prevalent in arcades and the like, wherein a player pays for a try to remove a prize from a bin using controls that maneuver a movable crane. The player attempts to withdraw a prize by capturing it with the crane and then depositing it in a pathway that leads out of the prize compartment. One such game is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,374 to the inventor of the present invention, the contents of which are fully incorporated herein by reference, which uses a vacuum pick-up device to capture prizes and deliver them to a chute that leads to the player. Vacuum type crane games offer benefits over traditional claw games as outlined in the '374 patent, but one issue has been the type of prizes that may be used with a vacuum crane. These prizes must typically include a smooth surface so that a proper seal can be established by the vacuum. Plush toys and toys with irregular surfaces, which often made up a bulk of the prizes of traditional crane games, would be excluded by the use of the vacuum crane since the vacuum component cannot form an air-tight seal with prizes of this type and therefore cannot pick them up.
To overcome this problem and allow more types of prizes to be utilized in the vacuum crane game, it is known to use plastic capsules which contain a prize therein. The plastic capsules provide a smooth, hard surface that is easily captured by the vacuum crane, thereby allowing prizes that otherwise would be difficult or impossible to use in such a game to be used. Such capsules are made by assembling two hemispherical halves, such as by snap fit or threads, so that prizes can be inserted into the capsules and easily removed. If the plastic hemispherical halves are transparent the player can determine the contents of the prize, although they may also be opaque to add mystery to the game. However, this solution has raised another drawback that has yet to be addressed in the art. Namely, if a player moves the vacuum onto a crease or discontinuity between the two halves the vacuum may not seal correctly as air from the capsule or adjacent the vacuum port may be sucked into the vacuum port thereby lessening the effective applied pressure. This may cause the player to lose or drop the prize. If the crease or discontinuity is not easily visible this may heighten the frustration of the player because they player does not know why the crane did not successfully pick up the capsule, and may accuse the game of malfunctioning. Moreover, the presence of such an unhindered smooth surface may detract from the skill of the game by rendering it too easy to capture a prize, which can cause disinterest by the player and lead to poor performance by the owner of the game.